


some things you do for money, and some you do for love, love, love

by Metronomeblue



Category: The Umbrella Academy (Comics), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: (It's Leonard), (not one of the Hargreeves), AND SHE ALSO GETS ONE, Ben Hargreeves Lives, Bisexual Vanya Hargreeves, Canon-compliant through season one with elements of season two, Child Murder, Dissociation, Dysfunctional Family, Family Bonding, Five Replaces Himself, Five and Vanya are codependent and that's just how life is sometimes, Fix-It, Gen, Gratuitous Vonnegut, I know I'm forgetting things so, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Murder, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Season/Series 01, Tags May Change, This fic is about taking a hammer and FIXING the family, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Underage Drinking, Vanya Hargreeves Needs A Hug, We'll Talk About Delores Later, and he gets one, it's my brand i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25799653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metronomeblue/pseuds/Metronomeblue
Summary: “I’ll fix it,” he yells, and Allison turns to him with wide, terrified eyes. He feels all 58 years of his life, in that moment, with Klaus and Diego looking at him like he’s as much of a traitor as Vanya, with Luther and Allison looking at him like he’s gone stark raving crazy. He’s not, though. He’s perfectly sane. “I can do this,” he insists, looking at Vanya, pale and unconscious, at the place where he imagines Ben to be. “I can do this. I’ll get it right. I promise,” and he’s not crying, he’s not, but his eyes are wet. “I promise,” he swears, and he takes one fateful step back.He opens his eyes, and he is home. The ornate rugs, the dusty sunbeams, the sound of informational records and silverware clinking against plates. He got it right this time.It’s 2002. He is thirteen.He is about to disappear._____At the end of season one, Five decides to risk going back to the day he first skipped to 2019, and somehow he does it. He has sixteen years to save Ben, help Vanya, avert the apocalypse, and ward off the Commission. He might even succeed.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Allison & Ben & Diego & Klaus & Luther & Vanya, Number Five | The Boy & Ben Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Ben Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Vanya Hargreeves, Vanya Hargreeves & Everyone
Comments: 46
Kudos: 431





	some things you do for money, and some you do for love, love, love

**Author's Note:**

> So basically. I have no self-control.
> 
> Also I wish there was a common and recognizable tag for "I read up on the comics and decided to pick and choose what I wanted to keep" but there isn't, so I'm putting it here. Some weird stuff is definitely going to slip between the cracks of the show.

There were six of them, drained and tired and broken-open like the burning moon above them-

And then there were none.

* * *

Five can feel the tremors of moon debris falling to Earth, can feel the theater shaking around them. The walls are cracking, spiderwebbing up to the ceiling, and the world is ending. The world is ending. He’s failed. He looks down, to Vanya lying unconscious in Allison’s arms, to Allison crying, to the white violin thrown across the stage. He looks at Klaus, wonders if Ben is watching. 

The world shakes. Flame breaches the windows and begins to sweep through the outside halls of the theater. He panics. He hasn’t panicked in a long time. It all makes sense, in hindsight. Harold Jenkins, the eye, the Handler’s voice asking if he wanted  _ all _ of his siblings saved- stupid. He’s so fucking  _ stupid _ .

“I’ll fix it,” he yells, and Allison turns to him with wide, terrified eyes. He feels all 58 years of his life, in that moment, with Klaus and Diego looking at him like he’s as much of a traitor as Vanya, with Luther and Allison looking at him like he’s gone stark raving crazy. He’s not, though. He’s perfectly sane. “I can do this,” he insists, looking at Vanya, pale and unconscious, at the place where he imagines Ben to be. “I can do this. I’ll get it right. I promise,” and he’s not crying, he’s not, but his eyes are wet. “I promise,” he swears, and he takes one fateful step back.

He can hear them scream at him even as he does it, can hear Luther’s roar, Diego’s shout, Klaus’ offended cry, even the rasp of Allison’s ruined voice begging him not to try and do this alone.

But he has to. There’s no other choice but to do it alone. The others have already been where he’s going, and to replace their younger selves… they wouldn’t have the nerve to do what has to be done. He’s not really certain that he would have, a week ago, but now? Now he’s ready. He’s on the edge, teetering on the verge of apocalypse, and he can feel it screaming inside of him like the wind over the ruins of the world. 

He opens his eyes, and he is home. The ornate rugs, the dusty sunbeams, the sound of informational records and silverware clinking against plates. He got it right this time. 

It’s 2002. He is thirteen. 

He is about to disappear.

* * *

It’s easy enough to get the drop on them, with his decades of experience and general willingness to do whatever the fuck it takes. None of them are refined enough, old enough to notice a second Five lurking. Not when the younger version is being so obnoxious. The younger version of Five is snappy and self-possessed, but he’s only thirteen. Just a child. Just a precocious, irritating child. There was maybe a time when he wouldn’t have done this, or would’ve done it differently, but that’s past now. He has no choice.

He looks… small, standing there. Five has never felt small. Nobody had ever been capable of making him feel small. But he looks that way, looks fragile and young and optimistic- there’s a light in his eyes that went out years ago.

If anyone notices something off, that will be the first thing. He makes a note of it.

He watches as he argues with his father, so certain, so foolish. He watches himself run headfirst into Armageddon.

He turns back to the table, watches his brothers and sisters return uncomfortably to eating. Vanya stares off after him, though, and the worry in her face is uncomfortable, too. He had forgotten how sad she had looked, how hollow and empty. He had forgotten how close they’d been. He shifts his gaze, and something wells up in his chest like a foreign tide of emotion. Ben. Alive. He looks just as worried, just as sad. Five feels guilt, feels shame for leaving them, now that he is faced with the consequences.

He had forgotten their faces, young. He had had a comic book fished from the wreckage, and the back of Vanya’s book, but Vanya had been a woman when that photograph was taken and the comic book’s pages kept the masks pasted to his siblings’ faces. He had forgotten how soft they were, so much softer than even that younger version of him. Wide eyes and callous smiles, quick laughter and recklessness- they were all  _ so _ childish, reckless with the assumption that this brilliant childhood would never fade.

This time, he knows, it must not fade. It must burn out, it must be destroyed- and he sees craters on the moon, Vanya’s stark white eyes, Ben’s memorial statue, his picture over the fireplace, Allison’s blood on their hands, his hands- none of it will go like that this time. None of it can. He spares a thought to despairingly wishing he’d paid more attention to the timeline of their misery, wishing he had a better road map. And then he steps from behind the pillar.

Five clears his throat and straightens his tie. They all snap to attention, turning to him with undisguised instinct, each of them leveling whatever power they have at him. Allison’s mouth half-open, Diego’s hands full of knives, Luther’s fists raised. Vanya just looks at him, Ben’s hand pressed reluctantly to his chest, Klaus blinking dazedly at him with eyes already clouded. Reginald turns, eyes narrowed.

“Good to see you all again,” Five says pleasantly. 

His teeth are bared.

“Five?” Ben asks, turning. He’s so young. He’s smiling, happy to see Five back again. Diego looks almost put out. Vanya looks relieved. 

Luther shakes his head and goes back to eating.

“Number Five?” His father’s voice feels like a hand curled in his collar, a reprimand. A reminder that he’s not in 2019 anymore.

“Yes sir,” Five snaps straight up to attention. Muscle memory, perhaps. 

“To my office,” he says, and Five nods. 

* * *

There’s always been something oppressive and forbidding about their father’s silences. Like a heavy sheet of glass draped over everything, so easily shattered, so painful to walk through afterwards. Five breaks this one, breaks the rules for the second time that day, and he smiles the whole time.

“You know I’m not the same kid who just left,” he says calmly to Reginald, sliding easily into the chair. He feels a strange trepidation even now, his unbearable respect for his father a kind of burden where once it was the thing that drove his ambition. He is rid of that cloying admiration which once possessed him, freed of his unclouded regard for his father now that he knows what a coward his father was. Locking away a little girl for refusing her lessons. Making a mockery of her life because she scared him. Sending his favorite son to the moon rather than acknowledge his mistakes. Five need not stand before him a trembling child.

And yet.

Reginald blinks.

“Are you an imposter?” Reginald asks, narrowing his eyes. There is a danger in the question, an implied threat.

“No.” Five says, smiling. He tugs the charred newspaper from within his sweater, cheerfully dropping it on the desk. “I’ve just finished a round trip to the future, that’s all.”

“Two thousand and nineteen,” his father sighs. He stares at the newspaper like it contains all the secrets of the known universe, and Five has a sinking, horrible feeling that he’s done the wrong thing. He cannot let Reginald know the truth. He pushes it down, buries his honesty for later. Reginald seizes the newspaper, flips through it, notes the char marks, the dust. “What was it like?” He asks hungrily, and Five pins his fake smile on.

“Hot,” he says snidely. “Climate change doesn’t get any better.”

“And the flames?”

“Almost fell into a bonfire in 2006 as I was making my way back,” Five lies blithely. “You were right,” he tosses out casually, knowing that this is what his father will most remember. “It was difficult to get back. I almost didn’t acorn.”

“But you did,” his father breathes, looking back up at him. Five tries to keep the despair from his face, tries to keep from recalling too much and letting the memory show. 

“Evidently,” he snaps. 

“Marvelous. We’ll start on more focused training tomorrow. Clean yourself up and return to schedule.” Reginald dismisses him. It seems too easy, far too easy. Five stands, adjusts his tie, turns back. 

“That’s it?” Five asks, trying to sound annoyed rather than suspicious. “I make a round trip to 2019 and that’s  _ it _ ?” Reginald peers at him over his glasses.

“Yes, Number Five. Evidently you have proven your ability to acorn, but you must refine that ability and control it. That is, as you say,  _ it _ .”

He tries not to look relieved as he slips downstairs.

They crowd around him when he makes it back to the dining room. Breakfast is over, so they’re allowed to speak, and by god, do they. Asking questions, hurling accusations, arguing with each other over his head. Vanya barrels into him with a hug, tight and yet easily broken. He leans into it, foreign as it feels, and smiles at the others over her head. 

"Vanya," their mother calls, holding up a pill and a glass of water. "It's time, dear."

"Yes, mom." She slips away reluctantly, and Five flashes out of the knot of their siblings to follow her. She looks back to where he just was, and Five knocks into her, knocks the pill out of her hand. 

“Sorry,” he says, grimacing, and drops to the floor to grab it. 

“It’s alright,” Vanya says, looking into the glass of water in her hand. “Five second rule, right?”

“Yeah,” Five says, smiling. He slips the pill into the curl of his hand and gives her an aspirin he fished out of his pocket instead. He was never much good at magic, but sleight of hand he had down. Vanya doesn’t notice, doesn’t even check, because the pills are both white and she trusts him. He drops the pill into his pocket as he adjusts his blazer, and nobody notices. 

He holds her gaze and tries to smile like a boy who’s never seen her corpse. She smiles back, and there’s just a little more life in her than there used to be. The bottle of pills is by the door, resting on a counter, and he palms it as he goes up. He knows there will be more and more strength in her, every day she doesn’t take her pills, and he slips the bottle into his pocket, feels the plastic, tries to shove down his anger, still new. He feels relief, even as Pogo eyes him with suspicion he knows he’ll have to allay, even as he knows he’ll have to have a much more difficult conversation with his father at some point. He can change things. He can make this right. He can save the world, save his family.

The day passes quickly, training and studying and math he mastered thirty years ago. He waits until it’s late, swaps out the remaining pills for aspirin, and replaces the bottle. Nobody’s noticed. Or, well, he hopes that nobody’s noticed. Nobody’s talked to him about it, anyway.

Five flashes out of the Academy, takes the bag of leftover pills, and throws it in the fucking Hudson. 

* * *

“Wake up,” Five says impatiently, shaking her by the shoulder, and Allison punches him in the face. “Shit!” He hisses, but it’s half laughter. “Sorry,” he says, still laughing quietly, as blood runs down his face. 

“Five? Shit! I’m sorry-“ Allison claps her hands over her mouth, eyes wide.

“No, I uh,” Five looks at his blood on his palm, glistening in the dark. “I deserved that. I just need you to do this while she’s asleep.”

“That sounds gross,” Allison grimaces.

“It’s not.” Five makes a face back at her. “Come on.” He leads her through the dark down the hall, to Vanya’s tiny, tiny room. “Do you remember when we were kids?” He asks, looking askance at Allison. “Vanya got sick?”

“Yeah, she was…” Allison’s voice trails off. “She was all alone.”

“She wasn’t sick,” Five says, looking back into the doorway. “She was just strong. He made you take that away from her.” Allison looks at him blankly for a long moment before he eyes go wide and her face crumples. “You remember,” he nods.

“I remember,” she whispers, hand over her mouth again.

“I want you to undo what you did.”

“But dad-“

“I’ll deal with him.” She holds his gaze for a long moment before she bites her lip and nods. “Undo it.” Allison steps into the room. She just stands there, looking at Vanya, trying to reconcile what she’s done with what she’s about to do.

“I heard a rumor,” Allison whispers, and Five is ready to clap a hand over her mouth if she doesn’t follow through. “I heard a rumor you knew you were extraordinary,” she says, stronger, looking at Five with a kind of contented defiance that he knows isn’t aimed at him. There’s a soft, low vibration, like something immense gently snapping in two, and they both look back at her as Vanya sighs in her sleep. The future is changing, he knows. Second by second. “I heard a rumor you knew you were loved,” she says, tearfully, and Five’s heart breaks, just a little. Vanya smiles. Allison sniffles, crosses her arms. 

“Thank you,” he whispers to Allison, and she looks back at him with a curious smile.

“I did this to her, didn’t I?” She asks. “I made her- I took it all away from her.” Five can’t say anything for a long moment.

“Dad took it away from her. You just helped.” It doesn’t absolve her, but it doesn’t condemn her either, and Allison nods. 

Five flashes back to the footage room, restarts the cameras. Hopes that this will help somehow.

* * *

Five days in, and nobody but Five and Allison seem to have noticed that Vanya isn’t numb anymore. She isn’t tired and afraid. She isn’t powerless. She’s really awake now. When she’s included, she laughs more, talks more. When she’s excluded it doesn’t seem to hurt as much. 

But more than that, more importantly, she’s noticed.

“You’re not my Five.” Vanya’s eyes are hard, full of a kind of petulant anger that he hasn’t seen in so long, and he’s relieved.

“No.” He doesn’t overstep this time. If he wants the world to come out of this conversation whole- if he wants Vanya to come out of this conversation whole- he needs to do this right. “But I am Five.”

“Who are you?” 

“I’m Five. I promise.” She doesn’t believe him. He steps forward- she steps back. “I’m Five. I just came back from the future.” She pauses, still angry, still afraid, and Five raises his hands to show they’re open, empty. As harmless as he can manage. “I- your Five went to the future,” he tells her. It’s freeing. It’s terrible. “He got stuck there. In 2019. And he waited until he could come back. And that’s- that’s me, Vanya.” Vanya tilts her head. He looks down at his very thirteen-year-old self. 

“I got a little scrambled coming back,” he admits sheepishly, shrugging. “Fucked up-“ He backpedals. “ _ Screwed _ up my math.” She looks a little scandalized even still, but there’s a flash of delight in her eyes at the swearing. His heart aches a little at how unfamiliar it looks there, how new, how  _ fragile _ . But it fades, and Vanya is still doubtful. “I came back,” he says, reaching out. He takes her hand. “I’m your Five,” he says, and it shames him how soft he sounds. “I am. I’m still your Five. Just older. Just…” the future burns into the backs of his eyelids, endless and barren, the Commission, so cold, so cruel- his grip on her hand tightens. “Just older.” 

“You’re staying this time, though?” 

“Yeah,” Five says, swallowing. “I’m staying this time.” She squeezes his hand, and he smiles briefly. “You can’t tell dad, though,” he says. “He thinks- I didn’t tell him everything.”

“You’re going to tell me, though?” Her eyes bore into him, intense and pointed. 

“I am.” He swallows, calculating. “Not here, though. Somewhere nobody else will hear.” Vanya frowns. His grasp on her hand tightens even more, near-painful. He meets her gaze. Her eyes are brown.

“Where-?”

“Do you trust me?” He asks, just as intense. She nods. “Okay. Okay. I promise I won’t leave you there.” He pulls her with him, and then they’re in the cell. Soundproof, grey, private. Soundproof, though. That’s the important part. Five hasn’t let go of her hands, holding on tight, and Vanya’s grip becomes crushing, painful. 

“I’ve been here before,” Vanya says, before she begins to hyperventilate.

“You have, I’m sorry, you have,” Five tells her, sinking to his knees to stay next to her. The words just flow out, like air from his lungs, and he can't stop them. “We didn’t know, none of us knew, but dad- he was afraid. He put you in here because you were strong, and you didn’t want to listen, and he was afraid of you.” She gasps, trying to breathe, just breathe-

“Are you afraid?” Vanya asks, and Five has to pause for a second.

“A little. But I’m afraid of a lot of stuff. I’ll get over it.” Her eyes well up with tears, and she shakes her head, begging.

“Don’t leave me here, please, please, Five, don’t leave me here-“

“I won’t.” He doesn’t let go. Doesn’t let her think for even a second that he’s going to abandon her here the way he did last time. “I lied to dad. I told him that I went to 2019 and came right back. But I was there for forty-five years, and then I got recruited by some people, because I thought they’d help me get home.” He pauses, swallows. There’s so much to tell. So much to keep back. Vanya is still crying, but silently now, her death grip on his hands only slightly loosened. “And then I went back to 2019, before the world ended. And I saw all of you. And then I made it back here.” He pauses, tries to think of a nicer way to say it and can’t. “I watched you end the world.”

“What?” Vanya starts crying again. Five cringes. 

“That’s why I’m telling you now, okay? We’re changing things this time. We’re going to make things better.” 

“We?”

“Yeah,” Five lifts their linked hands. “We. You, me, and the rest of the Umbrella Academy.” 

“Together,” she affirms.

“Together.”

He doesn’t let go of her hand until they’re out of the cell again. He’s not sure if it’s for her sake or for his. 

* * *

He finds Klaus on the roof, tequila bottle in hand, flat on his back. He’s reading Vonnegut- Slaughterhouse Five, appropriately- and wearing some stupid sunglasses he must have stolen. He could be gentle, and hell, maybe he should, but Five’s no good at gentility. 

“Can I help you, Officer?” Klaus asks, peering over his shitty sunglasses at Five.

“You have to stop drinking, Klaus.” Klaus snorts. He doesn’t brook argument, this version of Five. Even through the haze of liquor and lack of sleep, Klaus can feel the blood on his hands, the layers of it, the tide so thick it can never wash away. He wishes he was surprised. 

“Why?” Klaus snorts anyway. “Cause you said so? The fuck do you know about it, flashdance?” Five blinks, narrows his irritating little eyes. 

“You know I spent some time stuck in the future once?” He asks, and it’s a threat somehow. Everything Five says is a fucking threat these days, and Klaus doesn’t know when he stopped being afraid of it, but he did. He’s not afraid of Five. Even under all that blood, even drowning in it, ghosts leaking like tears from his eyes and bleeding out the corner of his mouth, Five wouldn’t hurt Klaus any worse than Klaus would hurt himself, and he knows it like he knows the haze of smoke lying low over the city. Familiar. Quiet. Constant.

“No,” Klaus drawls, propping the open book over his eyes to shade his face. “Were there flying cars? Did I grow up hot?” He snatches the book off of his face again and sits up to stare wide-eyed at Five. “Did Diego grow up hot?”

“I don’t know,” Five lies. “I didn’t check. But I spent a long time feeling sorry for myself and drinking expired schnapps at liquor stores.” Klaus blinks. “And y’know what, Klaus?” He asks, cheerfully, like he’s about to split Klaus’ liver from his body. “It didn’t fucking help.” Klaus drops back down, puts the book over his face to hide it. 

“How lovely for you. It does help me, though, so if you could just-“ Five kicks the bottle clean from Klaus’ hand, sending it flying over the roof and across the yard to land, clinking, in the gutter. The tequila is pouring out of it. Klaus looks despondently at his empty hand. “That was my last ten dollars,” he says sadly. 

“Good.” Five drops down to lie next to him, takes the book. “How far have you gotten?”

“Human zoo,” Klaus says, shading his eyes with his hand. “He was a freaky little man, Vonnegut.” He very much doesn’t look at Five when Five glares at him. 

“It’s a commentary on the role of the voyeur in-“

“I don’t care,” Klaus sighs, settling in. “Just try not to sound like a 58-year-old man for once, eh?”

“Mm,” Five makes a face, checks the page number. Smirks. “Don’t yell at me when I get to the part with the porn star.” Klaus sits up again in a rush.

“The what-?!”

* * *

Five spends a week with his family before he really sets to business. He wants to enjoy it just a little, to read to Klaus, to help Vanya through withdrawal, to talk to Ben again. He’s even happy to see Luther- small again, though Five had once thought him larger than anyone else even at thirteen. Happy to hear Diego’s stammering words, to see Allison smile, to hear her voice unmarred by a slit throat. To see Pogo, Grace. Even as he dreads speaking to his father, there is a sort of comfort in seeing him again. Five basks in it, having his family whole again. Readjusts to it.

But only one week. That’s all he allows himself. When midnight comes, he returns to Harold Jenkins’ house seventeen years early.

He’s small. Smaller than Five, smaller than Five expected. He’s pathetic. Five just stands there, for a long moment, watching the man who would end the world. Dark hair, small, terrible smile. His father’s blood is still on his hands, the hammer still in his hand, but he’s no match for Five.

He’s silent, on child’s feet, slipping his tie from his collar and doubling it between his hands like a makeshift garrote. He shadows the other boy, steps when he steps, pauses when he pauses. Until he’s close enough to loop the tie around the boy’s neck and pull.

“Why?” Harold Jenkins manages to croak, before Five doubles down on his grasp, pressing so much air from his lungs that he can’t say anything more.

“You ended the world,” Five tells him, the slightest wheeze of effort in his voice as Harold’s eyes go distant, small hands clawing at the tie around his throat. His knuckles go white, curling even more deeply into the garrotte he’s made of his tie, and Harold’s mouth gapes like a goldfish, screaming soundlessly. His fingers brush Five’s, weak and cold with lack of blood. Five finally releases the words, lets them spill out. “But more importantly, you used Vanya. Carved her apart and pointed her at us like a gun.” His hands will hurt later, and he won’t know why, but right now they’re bloodless where they’re fisted in his tie. So similar to Harold’s. So different. “You made her into a weapon. You made her a killer.” 

The memory of the Handler’s smile burns him, the endless sun bleaching the whole world to white, bleaching Vanya colorless- the weight of so many deaths on his hands, so many murders, presses down on Five, and the idea of Vanya feeling it too cracks his fragile control. Harold Jenkins’ neck snaps. “And I just can’t forgive you for that.” There is no response. If there was one, Five wouldn’t have heard it. He’s lost. Stuck in 2019, 2064, the Commission, the apocalypse- his memory reels, momentarily broken under the duress of this latest, unbearable, necessity. Five doesn’t let go of the body. He stands, Harold Jenkins limp in his grasp, tie knotted around his throat, heavy and very, very thirteen. 

He tries to remember what his assignment was. Why did he kill this child? Why is he suddenly so small? What threat did this boy pose to the timeline? Why did the Handler send Five here? Why? Why?

Harold Jenkins is dead. Five hasn’t let go yet. He trembles, breathing. 

Why?

His gaze passes over the comic book on the floor and it begins to return to him. Nobody sent him here. He chose to come. 

Vanya. Ben. Klaus. Allison. Diego. Luther. Pogo. Mom. Dad. Vanya. Ben. Klaus. Allison. Diego. Luther. Pogo. Mom. Dad.  **Vanya** .  _ Ben _ . 

He’s angry again. 

He unknots the tie. Reties it around his own neck, fixes his collar. No need to worry about leaving traces- his DNA is long-scrambled, his fingerprints illegible. It’s just another crime scene with no answer. Just another senseless act of violence in a world ruled by them.

Five goes home bloody.

* * *

The pills run out a month later, and Vanya is showing signs of regaining her powers properly. Reginald tries to send her to the doctor to get more pills, and Five almost has a screaming fit in his room at the thought of everything going back to shit. Not now, not after all of this. Not when Vanya’s eyes are bright and her power shudders every bone in their bodies with each note she plays. Not when Ben has never gone on a mission alone, not when Luther is whole and Klaus hasn’t even touched the liquor cabinet in four months. Not now. Not now. He thought Reginald would begin to understand- but why would he? How could he?

Five volunteers to go with her. 

The doctor sends Vanya home with a prescription for placebos.

* * *

It’s been six months when he walks in on Vanya kissing another girl. They didn’t hear him come in. They break apart as soon as they hear his next step, which is calculated, purposeful. He doesn’t want to be an eavesdropper this time. For a moment Vanya is terrified, eyes wide and reeling with the quiet betrayal of somebody who thought they were safe. She sees it’s Five, and all at once she relaxes, then tenses up in a very different way. A touch of shame, maybe, a flicker of misery. She doesn’t look him in the eye.

“Hey,” he says casually. Like everything is normal.

“Don’t- don’t tell dad?” Vanya asks, trembling and afraid, and Five can’t quite assuage the sting of the thought that  _ she thinks he would _ .

“Of course not,” he says, voice flat with disguised hurt. “You shouldn't come back, though,” he says to the other girl, who looks at once hawkish and defensive- good, he thinks, she should be- perched just behind Vanya’s shoulder like a guard dog. “He’ll figure it out faster if you keep bringing her here. Mom’s coming down the hall in thirty seconds, so you should clean up.”

“Oh, right-“ Vanya’s scattered, on edge, and Five tosses her a pack of wipes on her dresser to wipe the other girl’s lipstick off her mouth. 

“It’ll be fine,” he tells her, and she doesn’t look like she believes him as she steps out to the bathroom across the hall. He turns to the girl still sitting on Vanya’s bed. “You should leave before she gets here.”

“Fuck you,” the other girl says, on reflex, before she crosses her arms and rethinks. “Thanks,” she says in the exact same confrontational tone. Five feels a stirring of amusement, a vague feeling of approval. He crushes it. Now’s not the time. 

“Seriously,” he says to the other girl, in a tone that’s maybe a little rude. Maybe a lot, but he’s smiling so she can’t be angry. “Get out.” She opens her mouth, looks like she wants to fight, so he sighs, rolls his eyes, grabs her hand and yanks her to the front step. He even has the time to sigh a second time. 

“Shit!” She yelps, off-balance. “Why the fuck-  _ how _ the fuck did you do that?”

“I don’t have time to explain it to you if you don’t already know, but if you  _ don’t _ know, I’m going to assume that you also don’t know that our father is what you might call ‘controlling’,” Five explains snidely. “You’re the kind of person he wouldn’t want in his house, and he’d take it out on Vanya. And then me. And then everyone else. So I’m not letting you get the rest of us in trouble.” He pushes her down the steps one at a time as she tries to argue. “Call her back later.”

“I-“

“Call. Her back. Later.” She stands at the base of the stairs, narrowed eyes drilling through him. Five just smiles. 

“Y’know Vanya said you were one of the nice ones?” She snorts. “She was wrong.”

“She was,” Five says simply, that same ugly, fixed, smug smile still frozen on his face. “So call her back and tell her about it later.” He doesn’t give her a chance to respond. He’s already moved. 

He steps back up to Vanya’s room, just as she’s coming back in, and there’s a moment where she looks at him and her face crumbles a little, still raw from being seen. He just stands. Waits. Looks down. He’s getting used to being taller than her, still. He’s never been taller than Vanya. Not when she was still alive, at least.

“Hey,” she says quietly.

“Hey.” Five just stands, loosely. 

“Leah-?”

“Sent her home. She’s fine.” Five tries not to sound bitter when he says, “She’ll call you later.”

“Oh, okay.” Vanya fiddles with the doorknob. “Are we going to. Um. Talk about this?”

“About what?” She looks up at him, then down again, too quick to catch his eye. 

“Okay. About me, and- about her.” She’s still a little afraid, and Five tries again to stifle the flash of hurt. 

“Nothing to talk about,” he says, in the same light tone. He’s gotten good at it- it doesn’t even sound strained. “You’re my sister, Vanya.”

“What does that mean?” There’s a wry thread of humor in her voice now, some of that new confidence returning, and Five gives the smallest sigh of relief. 

“It means you’re my favorite sibling, and everyone knows it.” She rolls her eyes. He smiles. “And everyone had better include you.”

“I know,” she says, smiling back. Then, quieter. “I know.” She ambles her way across the room to lean against the wall next to him. There’s companionable silence for a long moment. 

“You know I wouldn’t tell him, right?” He asks, and this time it’s him who can’t look Vanya in the eye. 

“I know,” she says softly. It’s a lie. But it’s a lie he can make true, and they both know it. She looks over, and Five makes a split second decision to look up, and between them there is understanding. Everything about her relaxes, softens. He can feel his own shoulders sink, relieved. Some things are the same between them, no matter what. No matter when. They trust each other, always. There’s a pang of guilt, stabbing at the one time he didn’t trust her, and he crushes it. She looks the way she looked the night he came back, all those years ago, offering him a blanket and her couch even when she thought he was talking absolute nonsense. “I love you,” she whispers, eyes full of that strange dull light. It’s a rare and precious thing to hear, in this family.

“Love you, too,” he says, voice cracking with the disuse of the words. It’s the first time he’s said that to anyone in 54 years. She crosses the small distance to hug him, and he accepts it with a shameful eagerness that would make him blush if he was younger. He’s getting too old to pretend he doesn’t love his family. Too old to pretend he doesn’t want to be a part of his family. She rests her wet chin on his shoulder, and her tears are cold on his neck. He digs his fingers into her back. “I would never,” he says again, fiercely, and feels her grasp tighten in response. There’s something jagged and angry in his chest, protective in a way he hasn’t felt in a while. “And if anyone else tries, I’ll make sure they don’t.” 

She sobs out a little laugh, and it’s worth it. It’s all still worth it, to have a sister who’s alive. 

Vanya. Ben. Klaus. Allison. Diego. Luther. Pogo. Grace. 

They’re worth it. Whatever the price.

And he knows he’s going to have to pay for it.

* * *

Their father calls Five into his office again the next day, and Five is already halfway through drafting a cover story for Vanya’s girlfriend, for his exploits in 2019, for why Klaus has suddenly stopped stealing his booze and smoking in the attic, but that’s not what Reginald is interested in.

There’s a woman standing in his office, her back to Five, but Five doesn’t have to see her face to know who she is. Mid-length dress, straight from the 50s, stupid little hat, four-inch heels, perfectly curled platinum blonde hair. He’d know the Handler from any angle. She’s that fucking distinctive. He hates this. He hates everything about it, because it means that she’s followed him all the way back from 2019 and she’s here in his home with a cover story and a believable fake identity and his father’s trust, and he can’t do anything about it. She’s in his home, with his family, and he can’t do a goddamn thing.

She’s going to kill someone. Might be him. Might be his father. Might be his siblings. He tries to reassemble his defenses, tries to reinstate forty-five years of loneliness in a single moment, just to keep her out. Layers up ‘wayward but dutiful teenage boy’ over it. Prays it’s enough.

“Yes, dad?” He manages, innocently enough. It mostly works because he uses the word “dad”, and Reginald hates that, but fuck. Whatever works. Anything to distract from the knowing, loathing look passed between him and the Handler.

“Do not call me that, Number Five. I thought you knew better.” He unruffles his feathers, gestures at the Handler. “This is Imogen Thwaites. She will be helping to tutor yourself and your siblings for the foreseeable future. I would like you to take her to the dining room and introduce her.”

Five swallows his protests, his anger, his fear.

“Of course,” he says, still fake-pleasant and cyanide sweet. “Follow me.”

“I’d be delighted,” she grins, and Five’s smile becomes a halfway snarl.

Maybe this time he’ll kill her for good. _After all_ , he thinks, leading her down the stairs, _they’re in his territory now_. He says nothing to her on the way down, and she’s wise enough not to try to start a conversation. They reach the hallway, the dining room, and his siblings look up at Five and this woman, and he hopes they see his distrust. He hopes they see the anger and the tension in him.

“Who’s this?” Grace asks, frowning, and though he’s never been as close to her as Diego and the others are, he feels a pang of worry. 

“Miss Imogen Thwaites, a pleasure,” the Handler says, reaching around Five to shake her hand. He feels like something rabid is locked up in his throat, like a wild animal has taken possession of him, because he wants to snarl at her, wants to do obscene violence to this woman, wants her out of his home, away from his siblings, his mother, himself-

“And you’re here for-?” Grace shakes once and then leaves the sentence hanging, the burden of expectation on the Handler. She frowns. Clearly she expected a kinder welcome than this. Five steps to stand beside Grace, and he knows the other children have to be watching. How could they not?

“I’m a tutor!” She smiles hungrily at his siblings, at Five, her lips blood red, her teeth neat and orderly like whitewashed fence posts around a haunted house. Grace doesn’t blink. 

“Are you?” She asks, earnestly disbelieving. Diego stands, comes to her side. Then Luther, who pushes in front of him. Vanya, just behind Five. Ben and Allison, Klaus all standing, too, none of them willing to leave her alone in this.

The Handler’s smile fades, but doesn’t disappear. 

“I am, Miss Hargreeves,” she says, voice full of eerie delight. She looks Five dead in the eyes, stares endlessly into him. “I’m going to teach them… so much.”

**Author's Note:**

> Evil Mary Poppins-looking motherfucker. 
> 
> This fic has a definite endpoint in my head, and I am very excited to reach it, so hopefully I won't hit a major depressive episode and leave it hanging, but I mean. Let's be honest here. I might.
> 
> Also, originally in my drafts Five garrotted himself and pulled a full kill-and-replace, but then I remembered that this is a show about the disorderly progression of time itself as a stable loop of cause and effect rather than a parallel universe. so I had to refrain from creating a paradox lock-out. I'm hoping I got all references to that out of there, but if I missed some.. I'm sorry.


End file.
